VHS Review: I Come in Peace

My favorite part about watching VHS would be the ridiculously awesome trailers before the film. In this case, we only have two previews. This is another reason why VHS is better than DVD – Because DVD likes to cram in as many previews as possible, without letting you fast forward or hit the menu button. Nazis! So for “I Come in Peace” we get Wild at Heart aka one of my favorite films of all time and Delta Force 2 with Chuck Norris. The Delta Force 2 trailer had me ecstatic, even though I am not a Norris fan. I almost lost it when the narrator said, “He’s a gentle manâ€¦ With a soft touch!” It was the best cheese sandwich I ever had.

Moving on to my review for this accelerating and original corn ball fest! Yes I said original because that’s what it is! At least, I cannot remember the last time I saw a film about a good cop alien chasing after a bad drug gangster alien who needs human brain juice to make his alien customers happy!Â This dope slinging extraterrestrial shoots random people with heroine then proceeds to shoot this sphere thing into his victims brain so he can suck out their endorphins. This weapon of choice reminded me of Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, “GET OVER HERE!” Sorry, I played a lot of Mortal Kombat when I was a little girl.

The film was released in 1990 but it’s so obviously a product of the 80s. It’s filled with wall-to-wall explosions and gun play. Maybe not as much as a Michael Bay but it’s right up there. We even get some nifty fight scenes where the Dolph perfects his round house kicks. There are flying CDs as well! Interesting choice for a weapon considering CDs were just becoming real popular. I don’t recall actually getting a CD until 1994. I was a cassette tape girl and pretty young. As lame as flying CDs sounds, it was nicely done. There were plenty of satisfying CD POV shots present. Plenty of throat slitting! All of this was filmed in Houston, Tx! I had no idea. I wish there was a DVD with a featurette on the making of the film.

While all of these crazy shenanigans are going on, Dolph Lundgren portrays a cop who has been chasing after a couple of crazy, yuppie white boys who killed his parter. I love how the yuppies easily steal drugs from a police station and blow up the building, killing who knows how many innocent people. You know – Just in case! Crazy white boys.

When I first saw Dolph’s partner I actually dared to ask, “Is that Apollo Creed?” But then it was clear that it wasn’t. Dolph gets partnered up with a much shorter (so short he fits into Dolph’s jacket from when he was 12) FBI agent who is Brian Benben from HBO’s Dream On. The FBI is filled with bad guys but this little guy is a good agent. This crazy pair is now on the lookout for this mysterious criminal that is killing random citizens. What I DON’T understand is why this alien keeps saying, “I Come in Peace” with the voice of Reagan from The Exorcist before killing his victims when that was soooo not the case. Maybe he is trying to comfort his victims so he can get what he wants?

Dolph has a love interest. I guess there always has to be a girl but I wasn’t necessarily attracted to her nor did I believe those painful to watch interactions between the actress and Dolph. For an action packed film like this, I expected some bombshell like say Kelly LeBrock or Nancy Allen and some lovely cleavage shots. That being said, we do not get enough of boring, uptight female characters for love interests in these types of films.

The dialogue is pretty laughable. Even though, Dolph delivers a line that people still quote to this day which is “And now you go in pieces.” My favorite quote of the film would be when Dolph’s boss gets angry at him for disappearing for 8 days. “You’ve been gone eight days, Jack. A week I could understand, but EIGHT FUCKING DAYS!” Not only was Caine gone for a week but 8 days! Oh wow, that one extra day really means something. Another fun quote, “I’m a team player.”Â Dolph says, “Well your team sucks.” Aren’t you guys on the same team? Lastly, Dolph’s love interest asks, “WHO IS THAT?” Dolph tells her, “Some alien ass hole,” and his FBI partner follows up with, “Don’t worry, I have this!” He was referring to a weapon given to Dolph after the good cop alien dies in the back seat of his car. This weapon is the only thing that can kill this alien douche.

So here’s the skinny on these bodacious aliens. They dress just like humans and look just like humans only they have white eyes and they can walk away from explosions without their clothes burning. So their clothes are flame retardant. However, when they die, they explode. They have cops on their planet as well as drug addicts and drug dealers. It’s just too bad there aren’t any barbers on the alien’s home planet. The bad alien is sporting a silver mullet while the good alien has a lovely brown mulletâ€¦ and is balding. German actor Matthias Hues plays the bad alien and he says that he feels like he was made for this role. He did all of his own stunts because they couldn’t find a stuntman his size.

I think ladies and gentlemen will be pleased with the nudity in this flick. For men, there are girls dancing around naked, as well as one of the women being big breasted and having her shirt ripped open to show her bra. I almost shouted, “OMG RAPE!” For the ladies, Dolph has really hard nipples and takes his shirt off. He also drinks wineâ€¦. Just throwing that out there. I also want to point out that I am a huge Dolph fan. I just loved him in Rocky IV.

Overall, if you can get past the cheese, this is a fun film with great action sequences and original story telling with magnificent special effects. I felt like this film meets The Terminator, meets Predator, meets Phantasm and I know I am not the only one who made that judgement call. It’s pretty obvious.